Biden’s Illegal Alien Flood Results in 7 Year Court Date Wait

Posted on December 21, 2023 by Lawrence Person

The Biden Administration’s attempt to flood the country with illegal aliens continues apace. The situation has gotten so bad that aliens seeking asylum are now receiving court dates in 2031.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have set a court date for an illegal alien seeking asylum on January 23, 2031, more than seven years away.

Fox News Correspondent Bill Melugin reports that the Colombian woman seeking asylum crossed illegally into El Paso, and her immigration attorney, Matthew Kolken, is shocked by the six-year wait time to process her claim.

“Kolken tells me his client is a legitimate asylum seeker with what he feels is an air tight case, but because the system is so backlogged with illegitimate asylum claims, he’s not sure they’ll ever get a chance to argue it in court with her next check in 8 years into the future,” posted Melugin on X.

“It made me realize the Biden administration is basically providing backdoor amnesty for anyone who wants to show up at the border,” Kolken told Melugin.

Citizens responded with outrage in the comments.

“Will be voting in 2 national election cycles before her court date,” posted Dr. Joe Borelli.

Indeed, even if a Republican—presumably Trump based on polling—retakes the White House in 2024, he would be out of office by 2029, two years before the woman’s court date.

According to Transactional Record Access Clearinghouse immigration data, the court backlog has reached a record 3 million pending cases.

Meanwhile, illegal border crossers are released into the U.S. and flown to cities across the country.

Democrats, of course, want as many illegal aliens as possible as new welfare state clientele and Democratic Party voters, either to vote illegally or to legalize via amnesty. And they seem intent on keeping high levels of illegals coming across the border no matter how much their existing welfare state clientele in blue cities complain about it.

In other border control news, a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals judge “gutted a lower court’s decision that allowed the Biden administration to continue destroying concertina wire and other border barriers set by the State of Texas.”

Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in October alleging that border guards were destroying the state’s barriers.

The 5th Circuit decided that an earlier decision by a district judge in Del Rio denying a preliminary injunction is faulty. The decision only provides an exception for medical emergencies.

“Concluding that the district court legally erred with respect to sovereign immunity and that Texas has otherwise satisfied the factors under Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009), we GRANT Texas’s request for an injunction pending appeal,” the judges wrote.

“Accordingly, Defendants are ENJOINED during the pendency of this appeal from damaging, destroying, or otherwise interfering with Texas’s c-wire fence in the vicinity of Eagle Pass, Texas, as indicated in Texas’s complaint. As the parties have agreed, Defendants are permitted to cut or move the c-wire if necessary to address any medical emergency as specified in the TRO.”

For all that the MSM constantly told us that Trump’s border wall is ineffective, they sure seem to spend a lot of effort trying to take it down…

Posted in Border Control, Crime, Texas | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Biggest Losers From Houthi Attacks? Not Israel And America

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Lawrence Person

It’s hard to report on Houthi rebels telling U.S. armed forces to “bring it on” and keep a straight face. It’s like Steve Urkel declaring he’s going to kick Mike Tyson’s ass, or Bambi vs. Godzilla.

I mean, their video features a Northrup F-5, a plane introduced to service in 1964 and last manufactured in 1987. It would be very, very unlikely to defeat an F-15, much less an F-35, which would probably splash it from 50 miles away with an AIM-120 and be back in time for breakfast.

I’m a bottomless well of Skiffy pop culture references.

And the rest of their air force (or what little of it survives after Saudi air strikes) is old (and probably ill-maintained) Soviet crap of the type that got smoked by F-15s during Desert Storm more than 30 years ago.

Beyond that, the Houthis probably only have the shitty drones Iran sells to Russia, and the even shittier rockets they give to Hamas, and neither of those will get the job done, either.

So: Yeah.

So instead of the laughable idea of direct Houthi-U.S. military confrontation, let’s turn to Peter Zeihan (yeah, him again) to talk about who the biggest losers are in the Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping. (Hint: It’s not the U.S., or Israel.)

  • “Militants in Yemen are launching a combination of low-grade ballistic missiles and drones at commercial shipping in the Red Sea. And that’s led the 10 major shipping companies of the world to basically suspend operations in that area, and either tell their ships to wait [until] the threat passes, or simply sail around the Red Sea completely, which means going all the way around Africa for the Asia-Europe run.”
  • “Here we have basically a bunch of drug-adled militants, some of the world’s least competent ones, operating from some of the world’s least valuable land in Yemen, probably at the instigation of the Iranians who are their primary supporter, because this is a little conflict that is a needle in the side of Saudi Arabia cost them very little.”
  • “This is is not a formal shutting down of trade, this is more of a heavy annoyance.”
  • It’s not the danger of being sunk deterring traffic, it’s the dangerous of losing insurance for going into a zone of conflict.
  • Who’s hurt worst by all this? First, China. “Roughly 30% of all global containerized traffic [goes through Suez], and the biggest single chunk of that is Chinese exports to the European Union…it increases the sailing distance by 1/3rd to 2/3rds, and that means you need 1/3rd to 2/3rd more container ships to maintain the same flows. So we’re going to see a lot of pinches in the supply chains for finished goods.”
  • “In an environment where consumption is basically seized up in China and all they have left are exports, it’s also going to make it a little bit easier for the Europeans to put trade sanctions on the Chinese for product dumping.”
  • The Saudis might find it a bit more difficult to ship crude to Europe, but there are some ways around that.
  • Then there’s Russia: “Because of a lack of infrastructure, Russian crude had to be exported through the same port points on the Black and Baltic Sea, but it had to be then shipped through the Mediterranean through Suez through the Red Sea across the Arabian Sea to India, southeast Asia and China.”
  • “Well, that is barely an economically viable route now, which is one of the reasons why the Russians are typically selling their crude at a $20 to a $30 a barrel discount. But if Suez is closed, then they can no longer send these small tankers through it, and these small tankers don’t have the reach to go all the way around Africa.” I find the last assertion dubious, as they are surely ports in Africa they can resupply and refuel at, especially since I don’t think any countries in Africa have signed up for sanctions against Russia.
  • “So you’re looking at something like 1.5 to 2 million barrels a day of Russian crude that might finally actually be stranded if this isn’t solved pretty quickly now.”
  • Russian insurance update: “You have some Russian players, some Indian players, and some Chinese players who have started started to offer indemnification insurance. So we might get this really colorful situation where the real shipping companies stop using Suez and the Red Sea, but these shadow companies that have never had to pay out start using it and then we get to find out what happens if an Iranian-backed militant Force hits a Chinese Indian or Russian ship.” Good times, good time…

    • I also have to wonder if there are mercenaries Ukraine could hire to carry out letters of marquis and reprisal on Russian ships…

    Posted in Jihad, Military, video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

    Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw Files Bill To Ban DEI Statements At Universities

    Posted on December 19, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw sometimes strikes me as a bit squishy, but his bill to ban requiring DEI statements at American universities is a step in the right direction.

    A Texas congressman has introduced legislation to quell diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements at American universities by prohibiting “ideological oaths and similar statements” on college campuses.

    The bill from Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX-2) would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 by adding that a university cannot require an employee to “endorse an ideology that promotes the differential treatment of an individual or group of individuals based on race, color, or ethnicity[.]”

    The legislation would also prohibit universities from compelling employees to provide DEI statements.

    Crenshaw told National Review that “we can see the utter moral bankruptcy in higher education with the spread of antisemitism on college campuses.”

    “Make no mistake: The DEI bureaucracy is directly responsible for a toxic campus culture that separates everyone into oppressor versus oppressed.”

    “That’s why I am dropping legislation to protect free thought and prevent federal funding for universities that force students to write diversity, equity, and inclusion statements.”

    During its 88th regular session, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill (SB) 17 banning DEI offices at public institutions of higher education. Included in SB 17 are limitations placed on admissions, scholarships, and grants programs.

    This June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-based affirmative action admission policies, an opinion based on the legal challenges raised against admission policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina that were accused of disadvantaging Asian applicants.

    Although legal challenges to such ideas appear to be winning, the radicalization of students and young people remains an issue to be confronted.

    This is a start, but falls far short of the sort of hard reboot our social justice-infected universities really need. And it’s deeply unlikely to pass the Democrat-controlled senate…

    Posted in Supreme Court | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

    China, The Philippines, Marcos, And Blind Spots

    Posted on December 18, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    This post was going to be on how China is still screwing around in the South China Sea (and we’ll get to that), but I want to talk about the difficulty of keeping up with current events, especially of events in foreign nations, especially those nations that don’t usually receive too many headlines. It’s easy to develop blind spots and areas of ignorance.

    All of that is prelude to saying that until today, I had no idea that Ferdinand Marcos was President of the The Philippines.

    The Marcos in question is not dictator kleptocrat Ferdinand Marcos Sr., who died in 1989, but his son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Romualdez Marcos Jr.. (Note how obvious it is that his Wikipedia entry was written by his political enemies.) He was elected in May 2022 and assumed office June 20, 2022. How did I miss that?

    In fact, I’ve actually heard more about the failed David Byrne/Fatboy Slim disco musical about his mother Imelda Marcos than I did about Bongbong.

    One reason is that I don’t subscribe to a newspaper, because I don’t want a dime going to the Democrat Media Complex. (“If you don’t read a newspaper, you’re ill informed. If you do read a newspaper, you’re misinformed.” – Probably Not Mark Twain) Ditto watching any network newscasts, and I don’t have cable.

    I checked my email, and evidently not one of the zillions of newsletters I get ever mentioned the Philippines election while they were going on. Which is odd, since it had a pretty compelling storyline: Marcos’ Vice Presidential running mate was Sara Duterte, the daughter of then President Rodrigo Duterte, in a sort of national unity ticket.

    Maybe I’m just out of touch and everyone else already knew about Ferdinand II: The Marcosing, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

    Anyway: China is screwing around with The Philippines again.

    On Dec. 9, China Coast Guard vessels fired water cannons at Philippine supply ships in the Scarborough Shoal, where the Philippine ships had arrived to resupply fishermen. That’s just the latest skirmish in the disputed atoll, which is located near the Philippines but was seized by China in 2012. In fact, in recent months, China has markedly increased its maritime bullying in the waters off the Philippines. That trend is already beginning to spread nervousness among Western businesses interested in friendshoring some of their operations to the Philippines—which may be precisely what China is after.

    The water-cannon attack on the Philippine supply ships, which resulted in one of the vessels suffering engine damage and having to be towed back to port, came only a few weeks after two other heavy-handed actions by Chinese vessels near the Philippine coast.

    In late October, a Philippine supply vessel and a vessel from the Philippine Coast Guard were bumped, respectively, by a China Coast Guard vessel and a vessel belonging to China’s maritime militia. The incidents took place near the Second Thomas Shoal, in waters that both the Philippines and China consider their own. In 2016, the tribunal in charge of enforcing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) sided with Manila over the Second Thomas Shoal, but that hasn’t stopped Beijing from claiming it is the rightful owner and underlining this point through various maritime provocations.

    Indeed, for the past decade, there have been regular encounters between China and the Philippines in the desolate waters.

    In recent months, China has been particularly keen to demonstrate its presence around the Scarborough and Second Thomas shoals. It has rammed Philippine Coast Guard vessels and boats resupplying fishermen. It has used water cannons against Philippine vessels and tried to chase them away. On just one day in November, 38 Chinese vessels were circling the Second Thomas Shoal’s waters, according to The Associated Press.

    Snip.

    [Ray Powell, the director of Stanford University’s SeaLight group,said Beijing’s objective] is to discourage any attempts by nearby countries to follow the Philippines’ example in asserting their rights to waters that China has unilaterally declared to belong to Beijing. “China wants to communicate that it has jurisdiction in the South China Sea and gets to decide over activities there,” he explained.

    The aggression may be of the gray-zone kind—that is, not involving military violence—but it’s decidedly harmful, and not just to the Philippine and other vessels being targeted. “China’s harassment of civilian Philippine vessels carrying out humanitarian missions has a negative impact on shipping in the surrounding waters,” Amparo Pamela Fabe, a professor at the Philippines’ National Police College and a fellow of the U.S. Marine Corps’ Brute Krulak Center, told me. “It also heightens the geopolitical tensions in the South China Sea.”

    Indeed, the harassment has so alarmed the U.S. Defense Department that the U.S. military is now making a point of showing its presence off the Philippine coast, including by sending aircraft to circle above altercations between Chinese and Philippine vessels. But in reality, there isn’t much the Pentagon can do to deter the vessels from the China Coast Guard or the maritime militia off the coast of the Philippines: The United States wouldn’t risk an armed conflict with China over the harassment of Philippine vessels.

    I’m pretty sure that China wouldn’t be nearly so confident of that if Donald Trump were still President…

    Posted in Foreign Policy | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

    Italy’s Meloni Cuts The Baloney

    Posted on December 17, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    When Giorgia Meloni of the conservative Brothers of Italy was elected head of Italy’s coalition government, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the usual Eurolefty sorts and their media cheering corner about how radical, populist, etc. etc. she was. Plus the usual accusations of fascism, due Brothers of Italy having a bit of that DNA from one of the party’s it joined with being the successor party to the successor party of Il Duce. (It’s Italy. You can’t really tell all the twists and turns of party lineage without a dense color-coded flow chart.)

    Wait, you can’t tell it with one, either.

    But Meloni has generally governed as a fairly stand-issue slightly rightist leader by European standards. But recently she’s been saying and doing things that show she has a bit more starch than the usual Euroweenie leader.

    First up: She announced that Italy’s pulling out of China’s debt-trap Belt-And-Road circus.

    Italy will pull out of China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the government has confirmed.

    Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s administration notified Beijing that it would cease participating in the BRI ahead of a deadline at the year’s end.

    Italy was the only major Western nation to sign up to the BRI, one of China’s most ambitious trade and infrastructure projects, in 2019.

    The move was heavily criticised by the US and others at the time.

    Launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, the BRI aims to invest an estimated $1tn (£794bn; €925bn) across Asia and Europe. Projects including new and upgraded railways and ports aim to connect China with Europe and other parts of Asia.

    Snip.

    Only a fraction of the up to €20bn worth of investment in Italy promised by Mr Xi in 2019 has materialised.

    Italian exports to China were worth €16.4bn last year, compared to €13bn in 2019.

    By contrast, Chinese exports to Italy rose to €57.5bn from €31.7bn over the same period.

    The bill benefited China a lot more than Italy. Indeed, Chinese investment in Italy actually dropped after signing the Belt and Road agreement, from $650 million in 2019 to just $33 million in 2021. (I suspect Flu Manchu had a lot to do with that, but, well, that was China’s fault too.)

    Now Meloni has come out and stated that Islam is incompatible with Italy’s values.

    Giorgia Meloni said, “In Europe there is a very Islamization process distant from the values ​​of our civilization!”

    Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni scoffed at Islamic culture and said that there is no place for it in Europe. “I believe that there is a problem of compatibility between Islamic culture and the values ​​and rights of our civilization,” she said.

    The premier added, “The Islamic cultural centers in Italy are financed by Saudi Arabia where Sharia is in force. In Europe there is a very Islamization process distant from the values ​​of our civilization!

    The comments come after the Italian prime minister hosted a political festival organised by her far-right party- the Brothers of Italy- in Rome which was attended by British prime minister Rishi Sunak. In his speech, Rishi Sunak said that he would push for global reforms to the asylum system while warning that the threat of growing number of refugees could “overwhelm” parts of Europe.

    A whole lot of people in Europe are thinking the same thing, but few have stated it as bluntly as Meloni, and virtually none among EU country Prime Ministers. (Though Hungary’s Viktor Orban has come closest.)

    Despite the Russo-Ukrainian War and the growing recession, unlimited Islamic immigration into traditionally Christian European countries is the hot-button topic European elites have been desperate to avoid talking about, and the one in which governing elite groupthink seems farthest away from the actual will of the people.

    Expect it to continue to be a hot topic as long as European leaders continue to ignore the consensus among citizens of EU nations that they don’t want Muslim illegal aliens coming to their country.

    Posted in Crime, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

    Russia Now Getting U.S. Forces Directly On Its Border

    Posted on December 16, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    Imagine a timeline in which Russia became a normal country.

    Imagine, instead of Putin and a corrupt oligarchy, that Russia had a functioning democracy and a viable economy. It wouldn’t need to be perfect, just something as functional as that seen in, say, Poland or Hungary. There would still be controversies and scandals, but Russia wouldn’t be an international pariah, and would still be fully plugged into the global trade system.

    And a normal country wouldn’t have launched an illegal war of territorial aggression against Ukraine.

    In such a timeline, old Russian foes Finland and Sweden would never see the need to join NATO. And Russia wouldn’t be getting U.S. bases right on its border.

    The US will gain access to 15 military bases along the border with Russia under a defence deal to be signed with Finland next week.

    Russia would regard the presence of Nato infrastructure near its borders as a threat, said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman.

    “This will certainly lead to tension. We can only regret this,” Mr Peskov said.

    The treaty must be approved by Finland’s parliament.

    Elina Valtonen, the country’s foreign minister, will be present in Washington during the signing to meet Antony Blinken, the United States secretary of state.

    Washington signed a similar pact with Sweden on Dec 6 that gives the US access to 17 military bases.

    Concerns raised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 led both Finland and Sweden to abandon their military non-alignment and apply for membership in the Nato.

    Finland joined in April, while Sweden is still waiting for its bid to be ratified by Nato members Hungary and Turkey.

    To be sure, the U.S. already has some access to the military bases of NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. But Finland is much larger than all three combined, and has a vast border with Russia. And the Finns, as I’ve noted before, are no pushovers, having fought the Soviet Union to stalemate during The Winter War.

    And now you add American force projection to Finland, and there chances of Russia securing its vast northern flank in any potential war against NATO is essentially nil. Plus it puts St. Petersburg at risk of being captured in a swift pincer movement.

    And with real U.S. Air Force support, Russia will be completely incapable of establishing or maintaining air superiority. Ukraine has already made it prohibitively dangerous for Russian aircraft to overfly their territory. How well do you think Ivan will fare when he has to go up against F-22s and F-35s? (And yes, there are already F-22s in Estonia. And Finland and Poland already have F-35s on order.)

    Of course, Russia could have avoided all this by not launching an illegal war of territorial aggression in Ukraine. But that would require it being a normal country, which is evidently too much to ask…

    (Hat tip: Prairie Pundit.)

    Posted in Foreign Policy, Military | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

    LinkSwarm For December 15, 2023

    Posted on December 15, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    Hamas gets flushed. Stupid Jackson Lee loses the Houston mayoral runoff, and a whole lot of irony. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • House Republicans authorize impeachment inquiry against Biden.
  • Hamas is finally enjoying the enema of the state.

    Israel has begun the process of flooding the network of tunnels beneath Gaza in an effort to flush out the impacted Hamas assets lodged there, according to U.S. officials who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. The Israeli military operation has so far involved the installation of seven massive pumps and testing the process of flooding the Hamas holes with water from the Mediterranean Sea, and now the great enema has begun in earnest.

    “Israeli officials say that Hamas’s underground system has been key to its operations on the battlefield,” explains WSJ. “The tunnel system, they say, is used by Hamas to maneuver fighters across the battlefield and store the group’s rockets and munitions, and enables the group’s leaders to command and control their forces. Israel also believes some hostages are being held inside tunnels.”

    The tunnel system has been dug throughout much of Gaza and is also active at the Egyptian border, the crossing at which Hamas militants smuggle many of their weapons into Gaza. It is a critical infrastructure for the terrorists’ ability to continue to wage their bloody war against the only democracy in the region. Remove the network of tunnels from the table, and you severely cripple that ability.

    Hamas is exactly the sort of thing that should be flushed. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • McThag runs the numbers and says inflation is running much, much hotter than the Biden Administration admits.

    Thanks to Home Alone and Irish we know that a particular cart of groceries went from $19.83 in 1990 to $77.28 today.

    389.7% inflation over 33 years.

    Annualized, that’s just 4.208% inflation, since the goal is 3%, that doesn’t seem so bad.

    The problem is that cart of goods was $44.40 last year. That’s an annual inflation of 2.4755% from 1990 to 2022. Below the Fed’s desired rate, good for us, bad for the national debt.

    That means we had 174% inflation in one fucking year.

    Did you get a 174% raise last year? I didn’t.

  • CDR Salamander says it was foolish to expect a short Russo-Ukrainian War.

    A common problem, one that well pre-dates the invasion of Ukraine, is that we have shockingly well credentialed people of influence from both parties who have an inability to understand that Russians are not Westerners. They don’t think like Westerners, though they may look like them.

    The Russians have a distinct culture, history, and view of themselves and their place in history. The underperforming political, military, and diplomatic elite in the West – with few exceptions outside the former Warsaw Pact nations now in NATO – expect Russians to react in the same way and to the same degree to the incentives and disincentives that move needles and preferences in DC and Brussels.

    Time is always on the side of Russia, which is one of the reasons the slow rolling of weapons to Ukraine has been an exercise of malpractice of the highest degree. You are either in or out.

    Two years on, “we” still are not sending a clear signal. It is amazing, really; in military might, GDP, demographics and a whole host of other reasons, Russia should not be as resilient as they are … which is why DC & Brussels are being played so hard. They still do not understand Russia.

    Even after 1,000 years of experience, we have Western leaders who refuse to believe that the Russians are fundamentally different than the West is in the 21st Century. You can’t put the cultural ability to absorb damage and brutal patience you cannot see in some metric that can go on a PPT slide.

    What the Russians lack in so many other places, they make up for here. As such, this critical part of understanding Russian motivation keeps being missed. Yes to their economy and apocalyptic demographics. Yes to all that.

    For all the reasons Russia continues to fight, so too do their Ukrainian brothers – demonstrating greater resilience and endurance that Western expectations.

    The time for leaving Ukraine to its fate is long past. Yes, the West has a short attention span and is suffering under the dead hand of entrenched leaders with a defeatist mindset – but none of this is written.

    Ukraine can still win – or at least something that can be called a win. It would help if the Russians had some internal issues that required more attention that Ukraine, but even then – all is not worth shrugging over.

    Yes, I’ve seen the math – the metrics – but war is informed by math, but not defined within it.

    At a relatively modest cost in our treasure and almost none of our blood, we are wearing down Russia’s ability to project power for a generation, perhaps two. Perhaps many more generations should demographic instability mate with political instability. The Ukrainians – facing the same economic and demographic challenges as the Russians – are up for the fight. There is no reason for more comfortable nations who have supported them so far to go wobbly at half-time.

  • “FBI Official Who Helped Launch Trump-Russia Probe Sentenced to Four Years in Prison for Work with Russian Oligarch…In August, Charles McGonigal, a 22-year veteran of the bureau’s field office in New York, was found guilty of a count of conspiracy for working with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire with close ties to President Vladimir Putin.”

    Jagged Little Pill is now 28 years old. I don’t think I’ve listened to it for the last 27.

  • “Texas Sen. John Whitmire Defeats Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee for Mayor of Houston.”

    Texas Sen. John Whitmire (D-Houston) has won a resounding victory over U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX-18) in a runoff election for mayor of Houston, carrying the race by 64 percentage points according to election results.

    “Voters have spoken and I am humbly grateful to the people of Houston for electing me as their next mayor,” said Whitmire in a statement.

    The election results largely mirrored the latest polling in the race where Whitmire maintained a lead over Jackson Lee, especially in runoff scenarios where negative perceptions of the congresswoman indicated many voters who had supported one of the other 18 candidates in the first round would likely move strongly towards Whitmire. Polls also indicated crime and public safety were among the top concerns for Houstonians — an issue on which Whitmire, as the longtime chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, held a distinct advantage over Jackson Lee.

    I didn’t follow that race closely because it’s been obvious for a long time that Lee simply isn’t very bright, something even the lefty sorts at the Daily Beast noticed.

  • Actually, conservative groups racked up a number of wins in Houston’s elections this year.

    In the Democratic-leaning Houston, Republican-backed candidates have slightly increased their presence on the 16-member city council with the help of the local party, outreach efforts into minority communities, and campaign efforts from conservative organizations.

    According to unofficial election results, candidates Julian Ramirez, Willie Davis, and Twila Carter all won runoff elections for At-Large Positions 1, 2, and 3, and incumbent Mary Nan Huffman handily fended off a challenge from attorney Tony Buzbee for District G. The victors will join incumbent Amy Peck, who ran unopposed for District A, and Fred Flickinger, who won the District E seat on Election Day last month.

    Each of the five contested candidates have enjoyed the support of the Harris County Republican Party (HCRP), the Republican Party of Texas, and groups like the Kingwood Tea Party.

    Pundits frequently forget that not so long ago, Houston was a Republican stronghold. Ted Cruz won Harris County (albeit it narrowly) in 2012, and Greg Abbott carried it in 2014.

  • Trump holds a record lead in Iowa.
  • “Planned Parenthood Received Nearly $2 Billion in Federal Funding over Three-Year Span, Congressional Probe Finds.” The proper amount should be “Zero.”
  • 64% of Palestinian refugees taken in by Denmark in 1992 now have criminal records.
  • “Elon Musk took another shot at Disney CEO Bob Iger Thursday, after the state of New Mexico sued Meta for allegedly enabling child sexual abuse and trafficking – yet Disney and other woke advertisers, who paused advertising on X in a kneejerk reaction to claims of antisemitism – apparently have no problem when it comes to the sexual exploitation of minors.”
  • How the Deep State’s censorship apparatus worked to worked to censor free speech during the 2020 election.
  • Spring Branch ISD Teacher Accused of Sexual Relationship with Student. Stephen Griffin taught at Memorial High School and is facing 2 to 20 years in prison.”
  • Worse, a teacher at Fort Bend ISD was arrested for sex trafficking.
  • Woke coffee shop employees fired for harassing Jewish customer. Good.
  • Once again, Communist China tries to ban Christmas and fails miserably.
  • Someone stole $100K of Dr Pepper syrup. Get a rope…
  • A black scholar Harvard President Claudine Gay plagerized is plenty pissed off.

    One of the academics who was plagiarized, former professor Carol Swain, is pissed after Harvard gave Gay a pass on what would have resulted in severe punishment and/or expulsion for anyone else, as Townhall’s Christopher Rufo reports.

    “I rarely get angry, but I am angry,” Swain wrote on X. “[R]ight now about the racial double standards that are TEMPORARILY giving #ClaudineGay an opportunity to resign. White progressives created her and white progressives are protecting her. The rest of us have had to work our rear ends off to achieve success. Some get it handed to them.”

    Rufo interviewed Swain, who said that the plagiarism went far beyond a few paragraphs – and that Gay’s “whole research agenda, her whole career, was based on my work.”

    “She became president of Harvard and got recognition as being its first black president. I don’t believe her record warranted tenure, and I believe that I had to meet a much higher standard than she did,” she told Rufo, adding “Something changed in the mid-1990s, [when] we were having a big affirmative action debate.”

    Rufo asked Swain what she thought would happen to a white person under these circumstances, to which she replied “A white male would probably already be gone.”

    Harvard announced that Gay would keep her job after a week of calls for her ouster, first, regarding her refusal to condemn calls for violence against Jews on campus, and then, after the plagiarism accusations broke. Despite a donor revolt spearheaded by billionaire Bill Ackman, a petition signed by 700 faculty members on Gay’s behalf won in the end.

  • LADDER FIGHT! (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “Turkish MP has heart attack after saying Israel will ‘suffer the wrath of Allah’ in Parliament.” I’ve already used the Alanis Morissette meme…
  • “Hedge fund Muddy Waters on Wednesday revealed a bet against a publicly listed real estate investment trust managed by private equity giant Blackstone.” Huge tracts of commercial real estate are vacant, and in places like New York City, that’s long been the case before Flu Manchu struck.
  • IBM President caught on tape pushing illegal racist hiring quotas.
  • Mark Miller and comic store owner stand up to comic cancel culture.
  • Popular Science isn’t.
  • Andre Braugher, RIP. He was great in Homicide.
  • Three-D printed Nerf dart minigun actually shoots faster than an actual Minigun.
  • “Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter Team Up For New Movie Where Everyone Is Pale And Weird.”
  • “Children On Best Behavior After Santa Announces Naughty Kids Now Receive The Marvels On Blu-Ray.”
    • Posted in Austin, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Guns, Jihad, Military, Obama Scandals, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, unions, video, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

    Elon U?

    Posted on December 14, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    It seems like Austin is becoming something of a center for anti-woke universities. First the University of Austin anounced it was starting a campus here, and now Elon Musk has filed paperwork to start a new university.

    Billionaire Elon Musk is likely to start a university in Austin that will begin with a primary and secondary school centered on science, technology, engineering, and math, according to a report by Bloomberg, which reviewed financial statements of Musk’s charitable foundation.

    The outlet reported that the new organization filed documents with the Internal Revenue Service seeking tax exempt status. Musk’s university will seek accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

    Bloomberg added that Musk transferred $2.2 billion to his charitable foundation in 2022. Some years ago, Musk also started a school for his own children and the children of other employees of SpaceX.

    Musk moved to Texas in 2020 and has since purchased X, formerly known as Twitter. He also announced in the fall of 2021 that he would move Tesla’s headquarters to Austin.

    In one way, Austin is a weird choice for the Anti-Woke University Capital of the US, since it’s a blue dot in a red oasis. In another way in makes a lot of sense, as Austin has been tagged the “cool” place to live for quite a while, and has attracted anti-woke refugees like Musk and Joe Rogan.

    Also, if Musk’s university is going to focus on STEM, “Silicon Hills” has one of the biggest concentrations of tech companies outside Silicon Valley. That’s a good pool to draw expertise from, and a place for students to find jobs.

    If Musk can found a university that actually teaches useful information, without being infected with social justice, and can avoid inflicting postcolonial studies and Queer Theory on students, more power to him.

    Posted in Austin, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | Tagged , , , , | 21 Comments

    All Texas GOP Reps Voting Against School Choice Retire Or Draw Primary Opponents

    Posted on December 13, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    Over the last month, I’ve posted several times on the need to primary and defeat every one of the Dade Phelan toadies who voted to kill school choice. It looks like we’re off to a good start, as the close of the filing period saw every one of them retire or draw a primary challenger.

    Every Republican who opposed school choice in the Texas House now finds themselves facing a challenger in the upcoming Republican primary.

    Despite being a priority of the Republican Party of Texas and Gov. Greg Abbott, last month 21 Republicans joined Democrats in voting to remove a school choice program from a school spending proposal.

    Now each of those 21 members are either leaving the legislature or facing intraparty opposition.

    Retiring reps are:

  • Kyle Kacal
  • Andrew Murr
  • Four Price
  • John Raney
  • Ed Thompson

    • Reps who have drawn primary opponents, and the opponents they’ve drawn (plus the opponent’s campaign website, where known), are:

  • Steve Allison: Marc LaHood, Michael Champion
  • Ernest Bailes: Janis Holt, Stephen Missick
  • Keith Bell: Joshua Feuerstein
  • DeWayne Burns: Helen Kerwin, Lyndon Laird
  • Travis Clardy: Joanne Shofner
  • Drew Darby: Stormy Bradley
  • Jay Dean: Bonnie Walters, Joe McDaniel
  • Charlie Geren: Jack Reynolds
  • Justin Holland: Dennis London, Katrina Pierson
  • Ken King: Karen Post
  • John Kuempel: Greg Switzer, David Freimarck, Alan Schoolcraft
  • Stan Lambert: Charles Byrn, Liz Case
  • Glenn Rogers: Mike Olcott
  • Hugh Shine: Hillary Hickland, David Ford
  • Reggie Smith: Shelley Luther
  • Gary VanDeaver: Dale Huls, Chris Spencer

    • If you’re a Texas conservative in a position to donate to campaigns (a tough ask for some here in the Biden Recession), now would be a good time to check out these candidates and help defeat some of Dade’s toadies.

    Posted in Regulation, Republicans, Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

    Three Arrested In Young Thug Trial…And The Trial Hasn’t Even Started Yet

    Posted on December 12, 2023 by Lawrence Person

    Dwight occasionally sends me emails titled “The Most Dangerous Profession in America,” each containing links to news stories demonstrating that the rapper lifestyle is frequently not conducive to the “life” part. So I was happy to return the favor when this Nate the Lawyer video on the Young Thug trial popped up in my feed, since the stupidity on display there is off the hook.

  • “A juror was arrested and sent to jail. The judge slaps a potential juror with jail time. Her offense: shooting video of courtroom proceedings.”
  • “A defense attorney [Anastsios Mannettas] was arrested and sent to jail.”
  • “Even a court officer was arrested and sent to jail.”
  • “Fulton County Sheriff’s deputy [Akeiba Stanley] arrested earlier today and accused of trying to smuggle contraband to a defendant in the case.”
  • “We’re talking about Grammy award-winning rapper Young Thug in his Rico trial in Georgia. Now, he comes from a poor Atlanta neighborhood. He grew up in a housing project, and then made it to rap superstar, having the number one album in the country.”
  • May 2020: A Fulton County grand jury “handed down indictments to Young Thug and 26 other people under the state’s RICO statute.”
  • “Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffrey Lamar Williams, is one of 28 defendants charged in a sweeping 56 count indictment against the criminal street gang Young Slim Life, also known as YSL.”
  • “The charges [range] from conspiracy to violate the Georgia criminal racketing law, murder, armed robbery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.”
  • “Also named: Sergio Kitchens, who performs under the name Gunna.”
  • Fulton County DA Fani Willis (she of trumped-up Trump charges) claims that gangs are responsible for 75-80% of violent crime in the area, which I rather doubt.
  • “According to the indictment, YSL is a criminal street gang. Started in late 2012 in the Cleveland Avenue area of Atlanta, prosecutors say Young Thug is a co-founder. He and his affiliates have played a role in some of the city’s most violent crimes.”
  • On RICO: “The only element that the prosecution would have to prove is that this gang is organized as a racketeering enterprise.”
  • “Now, after those indictments, people are looking at decades in prison, and the defendants start flipping like fish. Check this out:”
  • “Last week, Sergio Kitchens, better known as rapper Gunna, took the first plea deal, followed by Walter Murphy, an alleged YSL co-founder. Then Wunnie Lee (rapper Slimelife Shawty) and Martinez Arnold (rapper Lil Duke) cut deals. Now today Quantavious Grier (rapper Unfoonk) entered a guilty plea.” Grier is Young Thug’s brother.
  • “All five have been said sentenced between 9 and 10 years on probation. They will also have to testify at the YSL trial.”
  • Stanley: “Her arrest warrants detail her having an inappropriate relationship with an inmate: visiting his cell, communicating with an inmate through Instagram [Do prisoners in Georgia get access to Instagram? Is Internet access now a right? – LP] and trying to smuggle contraband to Christian Eppinger from one of his relatives. Eppinger is accused of shooting a veteran Atlanta police officer several times last year while he was being taken into custody.” Is Eppinger an aspiring rapper? Of course he is, under the moniker “Big Bhris.”

    If you remember this SNL commercial, you’re officially old.

  • “A defense attorney for Young Thug and his crew was arrested for possession of prescription drugs and attempting to toss a phone to allegedly another attorney but missing it, hitting a deputy upside the head so they charged him with assault.”
  • “One of the defendants was caught passing Young Thug drugs in court.”
  • “Young Thug’s fellow defendant Khalif Adams [real name: Jeffery Williams -LP] passed Percocet to Young Thug under the guise of a handshake right in front of the entire courtroom. Adams is serving a life sentence per murder.”
  • The juror caught filming got three days for contempt.
  • “Things are getting so petty that a lawyer for one of the defendants was ordered by the judge to buy lunch for everybody from a nearby strip club, and, and, and with given the penalty of writing a 17 page essay or spending 20 days in jail for the crime of being late to court a couple of times he’s got to write a paper on being professional in court. I am not joking. It’s literally 20 days in jail or write this paper.”
  • The judge specifies “Papaer is to be published quality, in APA format, and at least 10 primary and 10 secondary sources.”
  • I’m skipping over the question of using Young Thug’s rap lyrics in the trial.

    • Speaking of Dwight, he sent over a link that one of Young Thug’s co-defendants was stabbed in jail.

    One of the five co-defendants on trial with rapper Young Thug has been stabbed at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, delaying the proceedings for at least a day, authorities said.

    Shannon Stillwell was stabbed multiple times Sunday evening and was in stable condition, the county sheriff’s office said in a news release Monday.

    Is Stillwell an aspiring rapper? Of course he is, being known as “SB” or “Shannon Jackson.”

    Stillwell was stabbed by another inmate, Willie Brown, during a fight between the two men, who were housed in the same zone, the sheriff’s office said. The cause of the fight wasn’t known, the release said.

    Brown, who was arrested in July 202O and was being held without bond, was charged with aggravated assault and possession of prohibited items in relation to Stillwell’s stabbing.

    Good times, good times…

    Posted in Communism, Crime, Democrats, video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments